ABSTRACT
Journalism scholarship has for the last two decades grappled with a paradox: while the industry spent years mired in gloomy proclamations of falling advertising revenue, shrinking newsrooms and the death of local reporting, since the late 2000s the industry has also been caught up in a wave of jubilance about technology and innovation. After reviewing academic theories on innovation through social groups, organizations and industries, we adopt models that stress the importance of the social construction of technology and institutional isomorphism, expanding existing theory on from where isomorphic pressures originate. We then introduce two empirical case studies on the adoption of novel technologies in newsrooms, specifically privacy- and security-enhancing tools. Through these studies we explain the puzzling paradox in the shift from stasis to change in the news industry and show that innovation should be regarded neither as an irresistible force of nature nor something to be greeted uncritically in a fervour of pro-innovation. Rather, in innovation processes new tools and practices are implemented against a backdrop of social, environmental and structural parameters. We close with recommendations for how managers can implement innovation in their own newsrooms, in particular through diversity-oriented hiring, taking care to foster key ‘brokers’ who have experience across backgrounds and are able to translate between groups.
